In this paper, an effort has been made to study the performance and characteristics of existing ceiling fan blade using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of composite material ceiling fan blade. An experimental analysis is carried out using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyzer to check out the vibrations and power saving, in comparison with conventional fan blade. This indicates that composite blade has more strength over the existing fan blade. The composite fan blade reduces the weight of fan blade, which is 28% lesser than the existing blade and 30% of power consumed. The paper determines the usage of composite material as an alternative for ceiling fan blade.

Description

In recent years, various materials like composites are experimented in almost all parts of the household appliances, and it has also ventured into ceiling fan. Due to reduction in weight, composite materials are preferred over conventional aluminum blade. Composites are compound materials, differ from alloys in the fact that individual components retain their characteristics but are so incorporated into composites so as to take advantage only of attributes, not the characteristics of shortcomings, to obtain improved materials (Prabhakaran and Kumar, 2012; and Comfortson et al., 2014).

Composite materials (also called composition materials or shortened to composites) are made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties, that when combined, produce a material with characteristics different from the individual components (Rao et al., 2010; and Bongarde and Shinde, 2014). The individual components remain separate and distinct within the finished structure. The properties of composites are strongly influenced by the properties
of their constituent materials, type, distribution and interaction between them. Like conventional materials, composites are not homogeneous and isotropic. They are generally completely elastic up to failure and does not show any yield point or a region of plasticity. At present, aluminum is widely deployed in blade manufacturing mainly due to the advantages such as less density compared to steel, corrosion resistance and aesthetic look. Though aluminum has wide advantages over steel, it lags behind in certain properties such as less strength-to-weight ratio and paint coating. One of the most advantageous reasons for considering the use of composite material blade over existing blade is their reduced weight (Sonne and Parker, 1998; Shah et al., 2012; and Bhortake et al., 2014a and 2014b).